Monsieur Marceau: Actor Without Words

by Leda Schubert, Gerard DuBois (Illustrator)

Overview

Marcel Marceau, the world's most famous mime, enthralled audiences around the world for more than fifty years. When he waved his hand or lifted his eyebrow he was able to speak volumes without ever saying a word. But few know the story of the man behind those gestures . . .

Distinguished author Leda Schubert and award-winning artist Gerard DuBois bring their own artistry to this gorgeously written and illustrated picture book biography.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466818163
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	09/04/2012
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	50 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Leda Schubert teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of the Roaring Brook Press titles The Princess of Borscht and Ballet of the Elephants. She lives in Plainfield, Vermont, with her husband and two dogs.
Gerard DuBois is a four-time Society of Illustrators Gold Medal winner whose work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, The New Yorker, and in many books for both children and adults. He lives in Montreal with his wife and two children.

Reading Group Guide

Common Core Standards

This discussion and activity guide was designed to help students meet reading standards for grade 3 (see below). Most questions and activities can be adapted to meet the standards for grade 2 or grade 4. Students might also meet a variety of writing standards with the activities, depending on the ways in which teachers assign activities and provide guidance.

Key Ideas and Details
* CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.1 Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

* CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.2 Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.

* CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events.

Craft and Structure
* CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
* CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.7 Explain how specific aspects of a text's illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g., create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting)

Discussion Questions:

1. What were the most important events in the story of Marcel Marceau's life? Why were they important to him?

2. How would you describe Marcel Marceau's character? Why would you describe him this way?

3. What is a mime? Using quotations from the story, explain why Marcel Marceau might have become a mime.

4. How do the illustrations in the first half of this biography help depict the historical era Marcel Marceau lived in? How do they give information about that era's places and events?

5. Look at the illustrations in the second half of the story, the illustrations of Marcel Marceau performing. What do the illustrations tell you about Marcel Marceau as a person? What do they tell you about his performances? Explain your answers.

6. Marceau said, "The mime must make reality into dreams and dreams into reality." What do you think he meant by this? What other professions require people to do the same? Why?

7. Marceau also said, "Neither laughter nor tears are French, English, Russian, or Japanese." What does this mean? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

8. If Marcel Marceau had a motto for the best way to live life, what do you think it might have been? Why?

9. What other stories, fiction or nonfiction, does Monsieur Marceau remind you of? What are the similarities between those stories and this one? What are the differences?

10. What people in your own life is Marcel Marceau most like? Why?

Activities:
1. Silent Storytelling - Pick a number of common folk tales or fables and read these to your class. Lead a discussion identifying the stories' main characters and events. Then place your students in small groups, and give each group one folk tale or fable title. Tell students they'll mime the stories for each other, and help them practice their stories. You may want to use Rob Mermin's advice, on the last page of the "Afterword," to help them begin miming. Once their stories are ready, set up a performance day and enjoy their silent storytelling.

2. Life-Changing Events Anthology - Monsieur Marceau describes a few events that transformed Marcel Marceau's life, events that forever influenced him. Using this biography as an example, help students identify their own life-changing events. Once they have, help each of them write a personal essay that describes these events and articulates how the events were important. After students complete their essays, compile them in an anthology for the classroom.

3. Passion Essay – Monsieur Marceau is about a person's passion and creative expression. Help students identify and articulate their own passions. Assist them as they brainstorm one to three ways they might develop or use their passions. Then have them write their passion essays. When they've written, revised and polished these essays, post them on a class blog or display them in the classroom for all to read.

4. Extension Activity for Older Readers: French Resistance Report – If your class is ready to study the Holocaust and World War II, help students research World War II and the French Resistance. As an alternative, have students study the way Denmark saved its Jewish population from the Nazis with a text like Ellen Levine's Darkness Over Denmark: The Danish Resistance and the Rescue of the Jews. Assist students to take and organize their notes. Guide them as they write their reports to completion.

Editorial Reviews

While some readers may know Marcel Marceau’s work, they are likely unaware of his WWII heroism. Schubert (The Princess of Borscht) places Marceau’s Jewish heritage at the heart of his art. As a young man in occupied France, Marceau helped Jewish children escape, hid U.S. parachutists, then changed his name from Mangel to Marceau to conceal his identity. “I am Jewish. Perhaps that, unconsciously, contributed towards my choice of silence,” Schubert quotes Marceau as saying. In the first half of the book, DuBois’s (Stories for Young People: Edgar Allan Poe) stately paintings pay homage to Marceau’s bravery. In the second, Schubert details Marceau’s phenomenal success (“He traveled the world—appearing on television and on stage, for presidents and princesses, kings and queens”), and DuBois’s portraits help explain mime to those unfamiliar with it (“He walks against the wind, but there is no wind”). Schubert gives depth and compassion to a performer whose art might otherwise be mistaken for clowning. One afterword provides more information about Marceau; another describes mime and supplies some easy exercises. Ages 4–8. Agent: Steven Chudney, the Chudney Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Marlena Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

…readers…will find plenty to admire in this picture book biography.” —Booklist, starred

“An exceptional life; a stunning achievement.” —Kirkus, starred

“A noteworthy choice for all collections.” —School Library Journal, starred

“has so much...passion” —Horn Book

“Schubert gives depth and compassion to a performer whose art might otherwise be mistaken for clowning.” —Publishers Weekly

“If young readers missed the opportunity to meet world-renowned mime Marcel Marceau in Gloria Spielman's picture-book biography (Marcel Marceau, BCCB 10/11), here is a second chance.” —BCCB

From the Publisher

Gr 1–3—It is fitting that this superb picture-book biography is short on words and long on visuals. The spare text marvelously captures the essence of the artist, depicting a man whose choice to be silent was born of an awareness of the damages of war. Born in 1923 to a musical family who lived near the French/German border, Marceau idolized Charlie Chaplin and began emulating him at a young age. When World War II broke out, residents of Strasbourg were forced to leave their homes, and later Marceau joined the French Resistance. After the war, he changed his original surname, Mangel, to Marceau "so that people wouldn't know he was Jewish." Marceau studied mime and created the character Bip, whose smashed stovepipe hat, white makeup, red carnation, and sad eyes became known the world over. The stunning oil pastel paintings are as somber, joyful, and expressive as the man himself; they depict him fighting a bull, chasing butterflies, or crumbling in sadness. Covering much the same ground as Gloria Spielman's Marcel Marceau (Lerner, 2011) but in a more compelling manner, this exquisite book has an informative afterword and a page on the art of miming. A noteworthy choice for all collections.—Teri Markson, Los Angeles Public Library

School Library Journal

Audiences thrilled to his mesmerizing performances, in which he spoke through his expressive body without uttering a single word. Marceau was the world's most popular and beloved mime. Born in France, he grew up watching and imitating Charlie Chaplin, star of silent films. World War II intruded and turned the Jewish teen into a war hero. At war's end, he created Bip, his alter ego, who with makeup and costume "walks against the wind, but there is no wind." Schubert's spare text is both poetic and dramatic. DuBois's oil paintings are brilliantly executed and saturated, with textured nuances. Images of Marceau fly across the page, delighting the eye, while close-ups highlight his extraordinary facial expressions. Ordinary paper morphs into stage settings as Marceau dances against white or black backgrounds. One double-page spread depicts a costumed fish with sinuously expressive hands and feet. Another presents seven views of Marceau in movement, updating a series of views of Marceau as a child. The pages set during World War II, in contrast, are a somber palette. Don't turn the pages too quickly; rather stop and feel the joie de vivre with which the master filled people of all ages all over the world. An exceptional life; a stunning achievement. (afterword, source notes, further reading) (Picture book biography. 4-10)

Kirkus Reviews